Curly straws - how to get/keep clean

[Justabutty]

Small boy's favourite Bob the Builder curly wurly straw has yukky bits in that I just can't shift. Have tried boiling, sterilising and poking various things down it but no success. Any suggestions??

Don't put it in the dishwasher - they lose their curl

dunno

I remember systematically poking small bits of apple up the stem of one when I was a kid and my mother going mental. Now I understand.

Lose the straw.

Pipe cleaner with fairy liquid?

I put mine in dishwasher, well dcs not mine of course, and is true about losing curliness.

Chuck em and never buy the sodding things again and then you can be like your mothers who refused to ever buy them when you were kids.

They are disgusting

ours sat on the side waiting for a fairy to come and clean it

then HC came to stay and made her dd a drink in it when I was upstairs

I have chucked it now

DP has taken up the cause and 'brilliantly' decided to push salt (!) down the straw to try and shift the yukky bits. Needless to say it didn't work and now we have a curly straw with mould AND salt. I'm going with the consensus....in the bin with the horrible thing.

Finally I can help someone on mumsnet usually it is the other way around .
Dr Browns (as in the bottles) do a tiny little long flexible brush to clean the colic tube thing inside the bottle. This should be perfect for the job and can be found in mothercare.

Loosh.

Big pack of disposable straws from somewhere suitably cheap like ikea - they even do bendy ones!

The Dr Browns thing would work but just think of the hours spent fiddling around with a small brush. Life is toooooo short

I bin them ASAP after they are purchased (never by me!), before DS1 gets too attached. We have a big box of disposable straws from Tesco!

I put my finger over the end, fill it with water from the tap, blow really hard into it and then let my finger go so the water blasts through it.

I am not a mother, but a 13 year old. I forgot a plastic cup with spiral straw with lemonade, which then proceeded to mould. The cup was simple to clean, but the straw was terrible. So i washed with soapy water and left there. A few months later, I needed the cup for drinking, but found the mould was still all through the straw. I tried taping cotton buds together, and using those, but they got stuck inside the straw. So I tried putting the straw in boiling water. In less than 10 seconds, the straw completely altered shape, and would not fit back into the cup however long I spend re bending it. So, I got an idea. I uncurled the straw completely and got a mostly straight straw, around a metre long. Then, using some tape for a marker I taped where I wanted to cut, softened i and cut it into 4 somewhat straight straws with a pair of regular scissors. Took around an hour to do, but if you have some free time or just bored, this can be quite fun actually. Just make sure you have some oven gloves on.